


French War Camp, 10 May 1637

by Anima Nightmate (faithhope)



Series: All For One At War [14]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Correspondence, Embedded Images, Established Relationship, Franco-Spanish War, Gen, Innuendo, Period-Typical Homophobia, Tension, Threats of Violence, War, Wartime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 01:24:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16776817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithhope/pseuds/Anima%20Nightmate
Summary: Athos drops a letter into his lap and his heart bounds – it always does, always will, he thinks – at the sight of her hand.He’s still trepidatious on opening it, though. His last to her…13 April 1637Dear d’Artagnan,How are you? Well, it’s finally official – I’ve moved to the garrison now, and anything you want to send me needs to be addressed here. There is alotto do. I’ve basically taken over the Captain’s office in order to have a proper desk for all the paperwork. I don’t know how Athos will feel about that. Hell, I don’t know how I feel about it, for the matter of that.*Another installment in the long series of wartime correspondence (and other pieces based around the black box that is the Musketeers during the Spanish War).





	French War Camp, 10 May 1637

**Author's Note:**

> Embedded letter images will have a text version in the end notes. Well, technically the end of the main body as AO3 keeps adding in characters to my end notes then telling me I have too many characters, so…

D’Artagnan stretches stiff shoulders, bows himself back from his hunched work and yawns. His sword has a bad notch in it from a Spaniard’s breastplate, but it’s not so bad that a replacement is necessary, and the smith had just grunted at him, slot-eyed, when he brought it in, barely pausing in his work.

“So, just hone it out then, is it?”

The man had sniffed in response. Nodded. Scratched his belly where it showed through the side of his apron. No matter the rations, smiths – like cooks and medics – eat well, and this one is worth the extra. Then he’d surprised him: “It’s got a couple more like that in it, then you’ll need a new one.” A gap-toothed grimace-grin had followed. “Try not to fuck it too much between now and Michaelmas, will ya?”

“I’ll do my best,” he’d said, a little stiffly, mildly disappointed after all.

“Though I know what you’re like…”

“Hm?”

“You Musketeers – fuck anything, so I heard.” His assistant had sniggered.

“Flattering though the offer is,” he’d returned, as drily as he could, sweeping him with his eyes, head to foot and back again, “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your craft.”

His assistant had sniggered even louder. The man had reddened deeper than the heat of the forge or the day demanded, picked up his hammer again, and started to lay back into the tool he was cold-working. He’d heard Athos’s voice in his mind: _Well done, you’ve antagonised one of the most valuable men in the camp_ , and he’d cast around for a suitable way back in, coming up blank. _Diplomacy is like flirting_ , he’d remembered Aramis saying, a few years ago now. _You just have to work out what the other person wants and, if it’s within your power, offer it wholeheartedly. Should it be no stain to either of your honours, of course_ , he’d added, seriously, but with a glint that said that this still left the field wide open as far as he, Aramis, was concerned.

He’d wandered away at this point, hammer clanging almost loud enough to drown out the ongoing guffaws of the assistant.

And now he’s fighting down an image of carrying something more saw than sword if he’s not more careful, until he somehow amasses the coin to buy a new one before it shatters, having lost the goodwill of the man who’d otherwise ultimately replace it. Sighing, he eases his shoulders out again, holding them back, then rolling them and his neck before taking a deep breath and bending back to his task, whetstone in hand, trying to strike the balance between sharp enough for the nick to not matter so much, and not so thin that the edge becomes like paper. It’s still going to leave a curve in the edge that–

“Good to see you taking care of your weapon,” says Athos, from just behind him and he jumps about a yard.

“Careful,” says his captain.

“Yeah,” he says, “I hear these things are sharp.”

Athos peers over his shoulder. “Theoretically.”

“Haha. Any orders?”

“Hm.”

“Hm?” He twists to see him.

Athos shakes his head as if to clear it, frowning. “No. Not… yet…”

He twists his face sympathetically. “Another one of your _feelings_.”

“Maybe. There’s that… tension.”

“Thundery. Right. I’ll get back to sharpening this, then. Faster.” He’s learned not to say: “Why don’t they just _tell_ us?” at least.

“Good idea. Wouldn’t hurt to look over our firearms, either.”

“Right you are.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Porthos.”

“Surely not!”

He gets a small, one-sided smile for that, and a clap on his shoulder. He lifts a small grin back up to him, and turns back to his blade.

“Oh, and post.”

“Ah?”

Athos drops a letter into his lap and his heart bounds – it always does, always will, he thinks – at the sight of her hand.

He’s still trepidatious on opening it, though. His last to her…

Her handwriting shifts a little at this point. He runs his finger gently over the underside to feel the more vehement press of her quill.

He flinch-grins as if he can hear her scolding from here.

Well, he thinks, he’d known that sending her a note bearing merely “You were right: it worked.” was asking for trouble, but it had been very hard to resist. He’s frankly astonished that it reached her so quickly…

In the meantime, Athos has been poring over his letter from the Minister:

Athos takes a breath and scrawls a table of corresponding letters according to the system they have worked out between them. After rapidly checking that the first sentence makes sense, he continues.

Athos sighs. Treville knows that he would know this. Perpend: Treville is worried about it. He spares a huffing, hard-eyed quarter-smile for his use of “fall”.

Keep your enemies closer. Right. Two mentions of duty there, where in the first he would expect “care”. In other words: every remaining candidate is an arsehole of the first water. Athos feels a flash of irritation – there is, as Porthos would say, bugger-all he can do about any of this from here.

Breathing through every line of this is Treville’s relief. He spares another quarter-smile for his use of “us”, surely involuntary.

Athos’s smile is rather fuller, and softer, at this.

“Were I a suspicious man…” he murmurs, not quietly enough, as d’Artagnan looks up with a guilty-looking start from his own correspondence.

“Is that Constance’s?”

“No – Treville’s.” He gazes at his companion a little longer. “Why?”

“Er, no reason.”

“All right.”

He bends back to Treville. There isn’t much:

Nodding to himself, he scans over the letter, filing relevant details, and methodically shreds the cipher and translated letter both into tiny squares, placing them in his writing materials box so that he can feed them to the fire later.

Unfolding Constance’s, he lays aside the chessboard diagram, not least because it’s reached the point where he’s going to be losing pieces, and he wants to preserve his dignity a little longer. The letter had been attached to a long, lumpy parcel of cloth, which he also ignores for the moment.

He notes with relief that it’s the same code as before, shaking his head on a reminiscent smile as he does so.

Fairly momentous, but no surprise after the last letter, really. He blinks hard, frowning at the letters. He doesn’t quite have it in him to decrypt the whole thing on the fly, so he fetches out parchment and pencil and sets to work:

“D’Artagnan?” he says, slowly.

“Yes?”

He turns, both hands cupped under the unwrapped item. “Why has your wife sent me a birch besom?”

D’Artagnan looks blank, then amused, then puzzled, then startled, then embarrassed. “Er. I ca– couldn’t say.”

“Really.”

“Yet,” he adds.

“I see. Nevertheless,” he says, “I am instructed to tell you…” he twists and peers, “that more words are expected else…” and he quirks an eyebrow, facing d’Artagnan again, “I am to _act as her hand_ in this matter.”

“Oh.” For a vivid split second he is being chased around the yard in the last year before he properly started to grow, the shrieking and flailing bound to catch up with him sooner rather than later, unrepentant pastry still clutched to him, seconds away from being rammed in his mouth so he can deserve his punishment full-throated.

The message is clear: never tell Constance anything unless you’re prepared for the aftermath, and that includes childhood memories.

Porthos chooses this moment to duck into the tent from training. He gazes at the tableau, then shrugs his way further inside, fingers busy on the straps of his half-armour. “Counting chickens not enough anymore, is it?”

“Hm?”

He nods towards the besom. “Sweeping the floor now?” His fingers freeze and his eyes flicker between the pair of them when they’re too slow with a riposte. “Or… is this… something I need to _take a walk_ for?”

Athos rolls his eyes, makes a voiceless sound suspiciously close to a _tch_ , and, with a sour look for d’Artagnan, tosses the object in question to Porthos, who snatches it one-handed out of the air. “Where do you want this?” he asks, straight-faced.

“I believe Madame wishes it to be a reminder, so prop it in a corner somewhere, I think.”

“Very good, Captain.”

D’Artagnan twists and glares at him. He winks back. D’Artagnan makes a grumbling noise and he says: “Watch out, pup, or I’ll put this where you won’t be able to help but notice it,” delighting in the fight of expressions across his comrade’s face, all drowning in a hot flush across his cheeks. He smirks, winks again with a double-flick of eyebrows, and strolls over to the corner to prop the besom.

As he returns to the centre of the tent, starting up again on his straps, Athos’s voice cuts across him. “Ah, maybe don’t unhook yourself quite yet.”

“Shit, really?”

“More a feeling than anything concrete.”

Porthos would trust Athos’s instinct over a dozen missives from the Pope himself, and tells him this by means of a sober grimace and an upwards nod, retightening the leather. D’Artagnan, expression sober, flinches a not-quite smile in his direction, and ducks around him to go fetch his own plate.

Shit. It’s going to be one of Those Days again – unable to just relax, unable to get stuck into anything, and the moment anything does happen – _if_ it happens – it’ll still come as a shock.

And it’s been – what, eighteen months now? – and d’Artagnan still hasn’t quite caught the hang of it, only a half-step behind where he was at least one before, but still ready to learn, still laughing at his own occasional daftness. Porthos doesn’t want to see that fade, and he aches, suddenly, to know that here, somehow, and sometime soon, he’s going to lose that innocence that they all prize in him, even Constance working to protect it time and again.

Shit. He slouches towards his equipment and starts checking his firearms. Nothing else for it. He hears Athos sigh, sees him runs his fingers through his hair, and step over to his own armour. D’Artagnan’s face is tight as he works the buckles.

He hopes the lad keeps his sense of humour. Or at least some of the hope. Nah. And he grins suddenly to himself, head tucked. The day d’Artagnan loses hope is the day he’ll see… something equally crazed, and he’ll know the End Times are here.

In the end, it’s only an hour later when the order rings out, mere minutes before the first explosion drowns out the brass.

* * *

## Letter image transcriptions

Or [skip to end notes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16776817#work_endnotes).

#### Constance to D’Artagnan 1:

13 April 1637

Dear d’Artagnan,

How are you? Well, it’s finally official – I’ve moved to the garrison now, and anything you want to send me needs to be addressed here. There is a lot to do. I’ve basically taken over the Captain’s office in order to have a proper desk for all the paperwork. I don’t know how Athos will feel about that. Hell, I don’t know how I feel about it, for the matter of that.

It took me going back to the Palace on an errand to Treville to realise how different the two places are to all my senses. I’m sure you know what I mean. And to realise which one means home, and has done for a while now.

#### Constance to D’Artagnan 2:

While I was there I picked up your note. I’ve just read it. I’m not going to dignify it with the word “letter”. Five words, husband? Five? Really?

#### Constance to D’Artagnan 3:

I appreciate your efforts to be cryptic in case these things are intercepted, but come on!

You are in so much trouble. Write back soon.

I remain: your well-armed wife,

Constance

#### Treville to Athos 1:

10 Znkqr 1637

Z xognrv ou hsqltj szfv xszltvw svkv jqlxv rzjh Q ekohv.

#### Treville to Athos 2:

The King has been persuaded that the Governorship of Paris should be combined with the management of the Red Guard. Since the Red Guard are now the dominant armed force in the city, this is a logical conclusion, especially since they do not fall under my jurisdiction.

#### Treville to Athos 3:

Competition for this position narrows daily. Whoever wins out, we needs must work closely with him, for the security of Paris, which must be our primary duty. As and when your duties carry you back home, this will be of more direct relevance to you.

#### Treville to Athos 4:

As you are no doubt already aware, Madame d’Artagnan has been increasingly instrumental in the development of the Musketeer garrison and the cadets. We have now formalised her position and she joins us officially this week.

#### Treville to Athos 5:

You must consider her your adjutant in Paris from now on. She will keep you abreast of changes here and you may send her any orders you need carried out at the garrison in your absence. She has my full confidence, as I know she has yours.

#### Treville letter to Athos 6:

Enclosed is Robert’s latest – and last – report on the disposition of the cadets and the garrison resources. I’m sure that you and Madame will work out a suitable arrangement between you.

#### Treville to Athos 7:

Continue difficult to kill. I have a reputation to uphold.

I remain, ever your friend and comrade-at-arms,

JADPT

#### Constance to Athos 1:

13 Aplxu 1637

Tkal Aiyqj,

#### Constance to Athos 2:

Yqf zqkj xi fxiy dqh? Mql sd pali, xi’j mxrauud qmmxoxau – X as rq uqrzkl Ykl Sawkjid’j qmmxoxau oqrmxtarik – X’gk sqgkt iq iyk zallxjqr rqf mhuu-ixsk…

#### Constance to Athos 3:

13 April 1637

Dear Athos,

How goes it with you? For my part, it’s finally official – I am no longer Her Majesty’s official confidante – I’ve moved to the garrison now full-time, and anything you want to send me needs to be addressed here. There is a lot to do.

We have a nearly full complement of cadets now, and Fabron is proving worth the extra coin. We now have enough of them to the point where we can save money on a watchman by having them post guard themselves. This has proved a double saving as it turned out that the previous watchman was stealing small items, powder included, from the armoury and selling them. He’ll not be troubling us again – he is in the Bastille, and the lock has been replaced for good measure. It’s possible he’ll hang – that’s pretty much treason, after all.

I believe Treville wishes me to write you regular (and more formal) despatches with information about how things go here, so that it won’t be too much of a surprise when you return, for a start! Please let me know what kind of information you require in those, and how frequently. I will send you separate notes – those sealed with the Musketeer Fleur-de-lis will be official correspondence from Madame d’Artagnan and in the standard code, which Robert has taught me. Anything else will be from Constance, as it were. I would suggest you do the same, but I suspect that your mind is already striding well ahead of anything I could say here.

In the meantime, I enclose the latest move and something for my husband. Please tell him that I expect more words from him, otherwise you are to act as my hand in this matter. If he’s reluctant, the aforementioned item should assist in jogging his memory.

I hope you are all well, and taking good care of each other.

With great affection,

Constance

**Author's Note:**

> Black dog somewhat tamed, I’m back. Hi! How’s it going? Fancy some more Wartime!Muskies? This series just keeps on expanding, so I bloody well hope you do! ☺


End file.
